mmorpg chart

[Thandruil]

The question is if reducing the price would attract more customers. If you decrease your prices by 5% and end up with 10% more customers, that's a win ... esp if there is little extra cost per customer.

And that's when u get to the point all "kids" start to play the game and ruin it for the more mature people who enjoy their current game.

<Looks at games like Diablo and Guildwars>

[<ankh>]

You have to factor in the risk associated with producing the game and the productions costs. Also, the more subscribers they have the larger the cost to them. It would be interesting to know what is the split of costs for a "normal" MMORPG. If they didn't have to pay for dev, what could they charge.

/agree

The question is if reducing the price would attract more customers. If you decrease your prices by 5% and end up with 10% more customers, that's a win ... esp if there is little extra cost per customer.

I think it might be better to stay at a "normal" rate (kind of the one it got atm) or else you will proberbly attract even more unserious players.

/Ankh

[Xest]

[quote="Craft"]The Games Industry nowadays is worth more than the film industry just to point that out ]
Kinda, has been like that for a while. There's really not much money in being a game developer, the real money is almost entirely in the publishing of games so if it's money you're after in the games industry you just need to move into the publishing houses rather than development houses. The only other option to make a lot of money in game dev. is to start an independant company.

Then, the games industry may make more money than the film industry, but at the end of the day the porn industry trumps them all, and that's why I'm a porn star not a game developer... er wait, no I forgot that was actually just a dream :<

[Xest]

Call it £50 Million.

This only proves to me that subcriptions are way too high. No way could Blizzard need that amount of money to run the business for one month!

Or another way to look at, £50 Million a month = £600 Million a year, which is roughly what Paul McCartney is worth... and it's taken him 44 years to earn it!

It's ridiculous. They ought to reduce subscriptions to £5 a month or less.

tbh your comparison is pretty bad.

It's more out of balance that a single person has more cash than a massively successful few hundred person, multi-million pound company makes in a year, especially when you subtract operating costs and take actual profits (I'd guess actual profits are at least half that).

[Gandelf]

tbh your comparison is pretty bad.

It's more out of balance that a single person has more cash than a massively successful few hundred person, multi-million pound company makes in a year, especially when you subtract operating costs and take actual profits (I'd guess actual profits are at least half that).

Yes, it's not really a like for like comparison, I agree, but it's just the fact that at the back of my mind I'm thinking there are probably a number of "fat cat" Blizzard executives who earn more money in one week than most people do in one year.

If Mythic who are only earning 1% of the subcription market with DAoC can develop and maintain a game that many feel is far superior to WoW, then why do Blizzard need all that money?

[Xest]

Yes, it's not really a like for like comparison, I agree, but it's just the fact that at the back of my mind I'm thinking there are probably a number of "fat cat" Blizzard executives who earn more money in one week than most people do in one year.

If Mythic who are only earning 1% of the subcription market with DAoC can develop and maintain a game that many feel is far superior to WoW, then why do Blizzard need all that money?

It's not like operating costs for an MMOG are fixed, for every customer you have, you also have additional operating costs in terms of bandwidth, storage space for character info and so on.

Blizzard is hardly a big offender when it comes to being profit whores, at least they've worked up from nothing to be where they are and even then I think you overestimate how much the staff actually get. The problem is games are getting bigger and bigger, as are the budgets that means ever increasingly large portions of profit have to be put away for the next big project, again on top of operating costs and so forth.

I'd be more bothered about how much people like Sven Goran Eriksson gets for doing pretty much nothing, £25million to lose every major tournament and have the team play abysmally? Hardly value for money. At least people like Scolari get so worked up it has some comedy value, Sven just sits there doing not an awful lot too Goes for a lot of people, look at that fat ugly Jade bird off Big Brother for example, she became a millionaire by being, ugly, stupid and annoying, worst part is she wasn't even a big brother winner, she was one of the people that lost, if someone who's that big a failure can make millions there's definetely something wrong in the world

[<ankh>]

Yes, it's not really a like for like comparison, I agree, but it's just the fact that at the back of my mind I'm thinking there are probably a number of "fat cat" Blizzard executives who earn more money in one week than most people do in one year.

If Mythic who are only earning 1% of the subcription market with DAoC can develop and maintain a game that many feel is far superior to WoW, then why do Blizzard need all that money?

Imo I wish it was lower, but I wont argue against them putting the price where it is atm. Its business, you can't expect them to lower the price just because they got loads of customers. Im pretty sure those money will be put into other things that their faithful fans can enjoy later on.
The most important thing to remember is - if you think the cost is too high, don't buy it. It's as simple as that. As long as there is a market there isnt any real good reason why they should lower the price. Also, if you look on the other mmorpgs you will notice how they have lost most of their players after being active for a couple of years, so you need to remember that the cash people are pumping into Blizzard now is helping them to make sure their future is secured.

/Ankh

[Xest]

Just another note.

Think how much enjoyment you get out of a DVD - ~2hrs?

Think how much enjoyment you get out of an MMOG in a month - anything from maybe an hour to

DVDs are generally more expensive than the subscription. Even the cinema costs about £5.50 nowadays, likewise, a few hours in the pub buying a few pints is more expensive, things like bowling, laser quest, restaurant and so on are more expensive in terms of cost per hour of enjoyment.

Taking that into account, MMOG costs suddenly seem fairly reasonable no ?

[Gandelf]

...I'd be more bothered about how much people like Sven Goran Eriksson gets for doing pretty much nothing, £25million to lose every major tournament and have the team play abysmally? Hardly value for money. At least people like Scolari get so worked up it has some comedy value, Sven just sits there doing not an awful lot too Goes for a lot of people.

I was going to say something very similar in my last post in this thread, but I didn't want to offend anyone. But you're right. European Football is a joke at the moment, especially English Football. That idiot Rooney doesn't realise how privileged he is to be in the position of potentially earning millions of Pounds if he plays his cards right... but what does he do? He stamps on groins. They should ban him from ever playing football again, or better still, cut his legs off!
It's too much about making money, rather than playing football for sportsmanship. That's why Football's in the state it is, especially in England. How many of the top footballers would still play the game if all they earned was £20K a year? Not many, I bet.

[Quinlan]

why do Blizzard need all that money?

Welcome to the world of capitalism where some people can make more money then others. I like it.